Microsoft Surface PCs Are Getting Big Price Hikes, and the Cheaper Models Are Going Away

If you’ve been waiting for Microsoft to update its Surface PC lineup—perhaps with Qualcomm’s caller Snapdragon X2 Elite processors—I’ve got atrocious quality for you.

Microsoft is shaking up its PC lineup, but it’s doing truthful by instituting large terms hikes. This means you’ll beryllium paying astatine slightest $1,500 for Surface devices that launched astatine $1,000 conscionable 2 years agone and that Microsoft nary longer offers caller Surface devices nether $1,000 astatine all.

The 12-inch Surface Pro tablet that primitively started astatine $799 and the 13-inch Surface Laptop that launched astatine $899 present outgo $1,049 and $1,149, respectively, a $250 terms increase. The higher-end Surface Laptop and 13-inch Surface Pro from 2024 some started astatine $999 but accrued to $1,199 successful 2025 when their entry-level versions with 256 GB of retention were discontinued; some present commencement astatine $1,499, a $300 increase.

As primitively reported by Windows Central, Microsoft is blaming “recent increases successful representation and constituent costs” for the terms hikes. Supply shortages for RAM and retention chips successful peculiar person been wreaking havoc with user tech each year, delaying immoderate launches, depleting the banal of existing products, and raising prices for tiny and ample companies alike.

The 2024 Surface updates were a large alteration for Microsoft’s first-party PCs. They were the archetypal flagship Surface models to power from Intel and AMD chips to Arm-based processors, wherever Arm chips had antecedently been stuck successful broadside projects similar the Surface Pro X. And they showcased years of enactment Microsoft had done connected Windows’ x86-to-Arm codification translation furniture (now called Prism) and connected getting third-party developers to physique Arm-native versions of their Windows apps.

Arm-based PCs inactive look to beryllium doing fine, based connected the sheer fig of retail listings, but these terms increases marque immoderate different comparisons betwixt Microsoft’s lineup and Apple Silicon Macs peculiarly unflattering. An equivalent M5 MacBook Air present costs $400 little than a likewise specced Surface Laptop, and thing successful Microsoft’s lineup comes adjacent to the MacBook Neo’s worth for the money. If we bash spot a Snapdragon X2-based update for these Surface devices sometime soon, hopefully Microsoft doesn’t present yet different terms summation to spell with the upgrade.

This communicative primitively appeared on Ars Technica.